But yesterday, I encountered — and blogged about — a NYT column by Nicholas Kristof, "On Their High Horse, Too Many Liberals Disdain Oliver Anthony" (NYT).
And now, this morning, I stumble into another high horse. I'm reading "Disqualify Trump in 2024? It’s clear what the NC Supreme Court would say" by North Carolina lawprof Gene Nichol, who takes the position that everyone knows the North Carolina Supreme Court won't go along with this theory about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Because we all know they’re politicians first and judges, at best, an exceedingly distant second. We know it. They know it. They just swear otherwise. And they swear from a very high, very hypocritical, horse. You would think the words would turn to ashes in their mouths. They wear cool black robes, no doubt. But as the patriarch of TV’s “Succession” puts it, they “are not serious people.”
Researching, I can see that Elon Musk used the expression a few months ago ("People should get off their goddamn moral high horse with their work-from-home bullshit") and Nelly had a song "High Horse" (back in 2021).
As for "not serious people" within the meaning of "Succession," here's a quick lesson:
We're all on our own when it comes to deciding which people are serious. What do you think? The law professors who've read the text and say they're sure Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has already disqualified Donald Trump?
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64 comments:
"The city fathers, they are trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse
But the town has no need to be nervous…"
The open contempt of law professors for the judiciary seems more common today. Observing as a non-lawyer.
(The cynic in me says it's because law profs are disproportionately left-leaning and the judges they target are usually to the right. But I'm only guessing in the case of NC.)
A tenured NC law professor is of the opinion that the NC Supreme Court is staffed with unserious people who are not jurists but politicians in robes.
Quite the statement.
Try this. Before Trump could be barred from office by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, he'd have to be allowed due process and actually be convicted of the crime of insurrection.
I've never taught at Harvard or been appointed to the federal bench, but this is fundamental to American constitutional law.
I was admitted to the Nebraska Bar in 1982. Every single judge I've appeared before is a serious person with one exception. Just one. I've won cases and lost cases, but with one exception, I've been treated seriously and fairly.
"Because we all know they’re politicians first and judges, at best, an exceedingly distant second. We know it. They know it. They just swear otherwise. "
Now do the Wisconsin Supreme Court - or, for that matter, the solid, always vote the same way liberal block of the U.S. Supreme Court.
I would ask the professor with his head up the ass of his horse this question- who gets to decide to remove Trump's name from the ballot? That is the question he did not answer.
Before the NC Supreme Court even got to the “Sec. 3 of the 14th" question it would seem that they would have to see convincing evidence that an insurrection occurred (which of course, it didn't), instead of just hearing the mass tribal braying about insurrection by the Democrats.
@Althouse, so have you studied the etymology of “high horse”? Back in high school I was told that it goes back to the Middle Ages, when armored men fought on horseback. The “high horse” was a very large horse bred to be able to carry the load of a grown man in full armor on its back, like the Flemish war horse, an ancestor of the modern Percheron.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?
Well listen to this.
"I am Mister Ed."
Only one case was of insurrection was brought against Trump by the House and rejected by the Senate. Anyone else jumping to declaring Trump ineligible based on finding of insurrection is not serious about the rule of law, justice, or any other part of the US Constitution beyond what they can distort to retain power unlawfully. If the 14th Amendment applies, then so does the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments as well Article 1 Section 3. To the extent they are serious people, they are serious of committing insurrection to prevent a free and fair election in 2024.
"CJinPA said...
The open contempt of law professors for the judiciary seems more common today. Observing as a non-lawyer."
And why wouldn't they, the way that the democrats have destroyed the DOJ/FBI in their 5 year long quest to get trump. They are extremely corrupt. To the point of literally fraying the republic.
He's an idiot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Nichol
The mounted mind readers of modern media on parade today.
I have much more often heard "Get off your high horse" than any variation of "On your high horse." Being on the horse is usually the issue that is being addressed by a request to dismount.
I am missing something with this whole argument. I am not sure 14A would prohibit our President Emeritus even if he were guilty of insurrection. I've heard arguments both ways, though, and don't really know for sure.
What I do know is that CIA Director John Brennan notwithstanding*, in this country there is a presumption of innocence. PEDJT has not been charged or indicted for insurrection, much less tried and convicted.
How can anyone think it is possible to punish someone for a crime they have not even been charged with?
*"people are innocent until alleged to be involved in some type of criminal activity." - John Brennan, https://youtu.be/YnfBWkl1bjo?si=OBncxVfMp0fZ-8g_&t=511
John Henry
This is the plan of the Democrats, though- remove Trump from the ballot if he is the Republican nominee, but the goal isn't to defeat Trump- the goal is to depress Republican turnout in the blue states where he has been removed from the ballot so that they can retake the House. Democrats play to win and are ruthless in doing so.
"Because we all know they’re politicians first and judges, at best, an exceedingly distant second."
Progs taught us well. Now do Brennan, Blackmun et al.
My son was telling me of a local conundrum. San Juan has a street called "Paseo de Presidentes" with a statue of every president who has visited PR including Obama.
They do not have one of President Trump who visited in 2017 on an official presidential visit. The legislature does not like him and refuses to appropriate the money.
Biden came last year for a visit. The legislature wants to make a statue for him but can't figure out how to explain the hole that would be left by a missing PDJT.
John Henry
And law prof are, of course, teachers, not politicians. They can be be counted on to give the news media independent, neutral opinions about the law, just as they can be counted on to observe ethical propriety when commenting on the judiciary. /sarc.
Wishful thinking from the lefties. If wishes were horses, law profs, leftmediaswine and other Democrats would ride.
As I read the nonsense from these law profs I can see why the legal profession has become such an embarrassment.
The open contempt of law professors for the judiciary seems more common today.
In my experience, they were contemptuous (albeit less openly) of law students who opted to become actual practicing attorneys rather than enter academics.
The case is so obviously invalid that it calls into the question the credentials of the people advocating for it. You're not a law professor, or a non-academic expert in the law, if you believe this bullshit.
@BigMike interesting it is a marshal term then. Once again politics proves to be war by other means.
Straight from the high horse's mouth. (I'll bet Big Mike knows that etymology too.)
I've always said that you can lead a horse to gummies but you can't make him high.
Any person who says, "We all know "x"" when "x"= "subjective opinion" is not a serious person. This is, of course, my opinion. Other people may have other opinions that are equally valid (even if they're wrong).
Depends. Has the horse been in the grow fields again?
I guess it's escaped everyone's memory that the Federal government balked at prosecuting Jefferson Davis for treason and insurrection. The trial would have to have taken place in Richmond and they were worried that an acquittal could be used as an argument that secession was legal under the Constitution. Maybe the NCSC understands that tinkering with Constitution can backfire on you. Apparently desperate, loser DemocRATS don't.
Pretty amazing statement by that professor that everyone is a hypocrite if they don't say what he wants.
I didn't say, "if they don't say what he thinks", because we all know he really knows better. We know it. He knows it.
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/01/you-dont-listen-to-the-press-im-telling-you-washington-post-columnist-philip-bump-strikes-out-at-those-who-question-prior-false-claims/
Riding high horses in high castles.
You figure it out...
I can’t take seriously any “legal expert” who says Trump is ineligible for insurrection when there has been no finding that an insurrection has even taken place, let alone that Trump was involved. Gene Nichol needs to get off his high horse. He is not a serious person.
The quoted law professor is a well noted radical.
All of these leftwing idiots are the south end of a northbound horse.
The higher the horse the easier for the rising tide of censorship to go unnoticed.
Listening to America this Week with Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn it occurs to me that Taibbi’s dilemma centers on the idea that because people are said to be incapable of digesting complex stories, (see his Why isn’t Wall Street in Jail) Matt can’t decide which is worse, the unholy alliance between the private sector and government or the public’s and journalists bleh attitude towards ever increasing excuses for censorship. Both ought to raise alarms loud enough to be heard no matter how high the horse happens to be.
At the formerly known as Twitter platform, the censorship shivers got so far as to get people a strike, if not altogether banned for merely searching an offending hashtag or banned persons. A search became a possible banishment offense. I mean, wtf?
How high does a horse have to be to have missed that indeed.
There’s also the possibility that the horse is high on ivermectin and like Hugh Hefner high doses of the horse dewormer can lead to hearing loss 😏
For some unfathomable reason I haven’t watched the last season of Succession in its entirety. I stopped in the middle of episode seven, final season, and just lost interest. I don’t know. Why.
When I think of high horse I think of the local squire or the slaveowner riding around his property and addressing the peons therefrom.
Everyone pointing to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and suggesting that states could ban Trump from their ballots - what about Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, which states "The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article" - doesn't this mean that Trump is only disqualified if the Congress passes a law to that effect?
Obama, on the High Horse
During a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama leavened his condemnation of the Islamic State's recent atrocities with a word of warning to his fellow Christians who wish to conflate the militant group's actions with Islam as a whole.
"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," the president said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
Barack "High Horse" Obama, Feb. 2015
Past history has proven that "Unserious" Leftists wearing black robes will accept any legal arguement, no matter how "crazy" if it advances their cause.
I'm getting really worried about the center-right constantly waving their hands and muttering "that's crazy, haha, no one will go along with that".
And then it happens.
The "kooky" idea that Trump is barred by the 14th admendment MIGHT be shot down. But only because you don't have enough Leftwing judges on the Federal Appeals, NC Court, or SCOTUS.
leftwing judges come up with the results they want, and find the reasons later. and they don't care how "kooky" or "crazy" the reasons are. Only the results.
I fully expect Trump to be found guilty, and jailed befor November 2024. All I see from the Republicans is either silence or "Gosh, that cant happen". Sitting aroudn waiting for "the adults" to put a stop to "all this nonsense" just means you're going to lose.
You'll notice that except for Mr. V, all the POTUS candidates in the R debate accepted the idea that Trump's indictements are valid, and that if he is jailed, that's within the normal judicial process.
Both Neptune and Pluto were predicted long before they had ever been seen because of peculiarities in the orbits of the other outer planets. It made me think that planets weren’t so very different from people. Seeing what happened around them was enough to tell you where they were and what they were.
Is the Presidency an “office under the United States”? Does “given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof” mean just what it says, or does it include aid or comfort to rebels and insurrectionists?
What’s the impact of section 5: does it mean only Congress may enforce section 3, or does it mean Congress can legislate rules for how to enforce section 3, or what?
These seem like they may be issues of first impression.
Seems to me there is an excess of faith that the upcoming election would be conducted within the Rule of Law? My question is: What for? The 2020 election has an abundance of proof-to-the-contrary on display, that judges will do pretty much as they damn well please when it comes to stepping back from getting involved with election issues.
So if a partisan State decides to eliminate Trump from the ballot based on an arbitrary contrivance, what happens? The lawsuits will commence, the judges will step back and refuse to entertain cases based on one pretext or another, just as they did in the 2020 post-election. Then the election will come and go, and it will become a moot point. All election issues face the deadlines issues and judges, particularly elected judges, are experts at the old slopey shoulders.
They're riding an ass braying for progress.
Remember when John Houseman was everybody’s idea of a law professor?
Also, Josh Blackman and Seth Barrett Tillman argue that the President is not an “officer of the United States” so that Trump has taken no oath as such an officer.
The AZ supreme court just ruled that the Democrat SoS (elected with Hobbs in the big Steal of 2022) cannot keep Trump off the ballot.
There's a political science summary of judicial decision-making that concludes that:
"Judges' decisions are a function of what they prefer to do, tempered by what they think they ought to do, but constrained by what they perceive as feasible to do."
It's been my observation that, the more one disagrees with judges' decisions, the more likely one is to emphasize the first part of that sentence.
Looking for a reference to High Horse by Kacey Musgraves. Love that song.
Why are these law professors Against Democracy?
Low horse story:
Peripheral bought eight year old daughter a pony. Sent me twp photos, child smiling on the long haired blonde pony, and the other of child frowning while shoveling fly infested turds with a big aluminum shovel.
Be careful what you wish for
"How can anyone think it is possible to punish someone for a crime they have not even been charged with?"
Just a guess, but anybody watching what's going on today might come to that conclusion.
In the 18th century John Woolman traveled all through the American colonies trying to convince his fellow Quakers to free their slaves. At one point he gave up his horse and opted to travel on foot because he wanted to identify with the poor who could not afford a horse. He got down from his high horse in order to walk at ground level.
This is the image that comes to mind when the metaphor is someone up on their high horse. Like many sayings, it traces back to an actual, physical thing. There was a time when only the wealthy and powerful could afford horses, and the poorer folks had to travel on foot, and when they encountered the rich man, he was literally up on his high horse.
"when there has been no finding that an insurrection has even taken place"
The Democrats and the media (BIRM) insist that J6 was an insurrection. And you know how it is with those folks (and small children, too)... if they scream something loud and often enough, that makes it true.
One man’s Kristol is another man’s Kristof.
mezzrow said...
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
False. According to Snopes, WaPo, and NYT, the horse character, Mr.Ed, was not actually speaking.
His conversations with Wilbur were dubbed.
Mr. Ed's voice, DUBBED?
Another illusion bites the dust.
As a pedant I must point out that anyone can talk TO a horse, and many people do. I do, on the rare occasions I am UCAP with one. Usually just small talk, really.
I was a big fan of Mr. Ed, and can do a pretty good imitation. I identified.
I haven't heard much from the "High Horse" front even from equestrians - but ". . . and the horse you rode in on" doesn't require an animal to be around if you just want to emphasize the "Fuck You" beginning of this well-used phrase.
James Carville of Bill Clinton fame wrote a book entitled "And the Horse You Rode In On."
I haven't heard much from the "High Horse" front even from equestrians - but ". . . and the horse you rode in on" doesn't require an animal to be around if you just want to emphasize the "Fuck You" beginning of this well-used phrase.
James Carville of Bill Clinton fame wrote a book entitled "And the Horse You Rode In On."
Nothing is a line — everything everywhere is always moving — forever ~ Connor Roy
Is the Presidency an “office under the United States”?
If you accept that as true, it doesn't say anything about being stricken from the ballot either. Just that he can't hold the office. That would say to me that a candidate can be on the ballot, but may not be able to hold office. At which point the VP candidate would take office.
Probably all decided on January 6 during that "only ceremonial" counting thing they do where you can't change anything ever don't even look at it or we'll send you to jail.
My mother always used that expression - and then I did not hear it for a long time until Obama used it that time to describe all Christians.
He hasn't been convicted of anything. I don't see how this could possibly work. I would think that Trump has to be found guilty in the J6 or Georgia vote trials to give solid grounds to keep Trump off the ballot.
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